She was moving into a new world. Drunken men appeared and lurched into the darkness with cursings and mutterings. Sometimes they sang. The smoke of the factory chimneys was now invisible, but the chimneys, like rows of minarets, made darker streaks in the gloom. And in the distance blast furnaces gutted the night with pink and orange flares. Figures of girls not yet shaped like barrels came into the street and stood for long moments in the shadows. Rachel watched them as she passed. They moved away into the depths of the soft alleys and vanished. It was late night. The exhalations of alleys and houses increased as if some great disintegration was stewing in the night. A new world.... Rachel's fingers reached for Tesla's hand. She felt surprised. There was no thought of Erik. This about her was a world untouched by the shadow Erik had left behind. So she could live here easily. And Emil was not a man like Erik. Erik, who stood alone, stark, untouched by life. Emil was a background. It would be easy. Her fingers, tightly laced in his, grew cold. Erik would come back. "Come back," murmured her thought. "Oh, if he should come back! No, I mustn't fool myself. It's over. And I can either live or die. I'll live a little while. Why? Because I still love him. Erik mine!" But it didn't sadden her to walk up the dark steps of Tesla's house. "Erik, good-bye!" Not even that mattered. Erik was gone. That was all something else. Not gone. Oh, God, no! Only Erik had died. She still lived with a dead name in her heart. But here were odors--strange people. * * * * * * It was barely furnished but clean inside. Later Rachel sat, her head in Tesla's arms, and wept. She was not sad. Her thought faltered, reaching for words, but drifting away. This is what had become of her--nothing else but this. Tesla looked quietly at her and kept murmuring, "Little girl, the world is big. There are other things than self. Must you cry? Cry, then. I know what sadness is." His hands moved gently through her loosened hair and he smiled sorrowfully. "Dear child," he whispered, "you can always cry in my arms and I will understand. It is the way the world sometimes cries in my heart. I understand.... Yes ... yes...." CHAPTER IV A kaleidoscope of cities. A new garrulity. Words like busy little brooms sweeping up after a war. A world of foreigners. Europe was running about with empty pockets and a cracked head. England had had a nose-bleed, France a temporary castration, and the president of the United States was walking around in Paris in an immaculate frock-coat and a high silk hat. The President was closeted in a peace conference mumbling valorously amid lifted eyebrows, amused shoulder shruggings, ironic sighings. A long-faced virgin trapped in a bawdy house and calling in valiant tones for a glass of lemonade.